The Bolivar bulletin. [volume] (Bolivar, Hardeman County, Tenn.) 1865-1888, 1887-02-11
DIR. TALMAGE.
"Pillars of Smoke" the Subject Of
His Last Sermon.
An Indication of the Suffering and Perse-
cution the Church of God Has Endured
"A Symbol of Its Beauty and
Ultimate Triumph

BROOKLYN, N. Y, Feb. 6-Dr. Talmage
took for his text this morning portion of
'-+h verse of tho third chapter of
Lhe s4A~- Who is this that
Solomon's song; less like pillars
cometh out of the w.ldei
of smoke?" He spoke as follows:
The architecture OF the smoke is Won
drous, whether God with His finger curls
1t into a cloud, or rounds it into dome, or
points if into a spire, or spreads 1t In
wing or. as in the text, hoists it into
pliaf: Watch it FyiBdiHg up from the
coufitry farmhouse IN the early morning,
showing that tte pastoral Industries have
begun, Or. see it ascending from the chlnl-
news of the city, telling OF the homes fed
the factories t4rning out valuable fabrlcsi
the printing presses preparing book and
newspaper, and all the ten thousand wheels
in motion On clear day this sRpoF
spoken OF mounts with such buoyancy, ana
spreads such a dGlteste vail across the
sky, and traces such graceful INES OF
circle and semi circle, and waves ana
tosses, and sinks, and scars and scatters,
with St'cH aH4uence of shape ana color and
suggestiveness that If you have never
noticed it you are like a mem who has all
hjs life lived in Paris and yet never seen
Luxembourg. and all his life in Rome
and never seen the Vatican, and all his
life at Locl1port and never seen Niagara.
Forty four times the Bible speaks Of the
smoke, and it is about time some body
breaches a sermon recognizing this strange,
weird, beautiful; elastic, charming, terrific
and fascinating 3apOr.. Across the Bible
Sky floats the smoke Of Sinai; the smoke OF
Sodom; the smoke of Al, the smoke bf the
pit, the smoke Of the volcanic hills whc5
GCd touches them, and in my text the glo-
rious church of Gcd coming ont Of the will
dcrness Like pillars Of smoke.
In the first place these pillars Of smoke
in my text indicate the suffering the
church Of God has endured. What do I
mean by the church2 l mean not build
ing, not a sect, but those who in all ages
anI all lands, and of all beliefs, love God
and trying to do right. For many
centuries the heavens have been black
with the smoke of Inartyrdom. If set SIDE
by side you could girdle the earth with the
fires OF persecution, Rowland Taylor
burned at Hadleigh; Latimer burned at
Oxford; John Rogers burned at Smithfeid;
John Hooper burned at Gloucester; John
Huss burned at Constailcei Lawrene3
Saunders burned at Goventsyi Joan of Are
burned at Rpueu.
Protestants have sometimes pointed to
Catholics as prosecutors; but both Protest
ant and Catholic have practiced infamous
cruelhes. The Catholics, during the reign
of Hunneric, were by Protastants put to
the worst tortures, stripped Of their cloth
ing, hoisted in the sir by pulleys with
weights suspended from their feet; then
! let down, and ears and eyes, nose and tongue
were amputated, and red-hot plates of iron
were put against the tendereSt parts of
their bodies.
George Bancroft, the historian, says of
the State of MaryIand ''In the land
which Catholics had opened 70 Frotestlnts
mass might not be said publicly; no Catftd
| lie priest or bishop might utter his faith in
I a voice of npIs5naci II fsqThOl5r CTht
/ teach the young. If the wayward child of
a PapIst would but become an apostate the
law wrcsted for him from his parents a
share of their property Such were the
methods adopted to prevent the growth of
POpery."
Speaking of Ireland, the same historian
SAYS: such priests as were permitted to
reside in Ireland wea, required to be reg
! istered, and were kept Ike pfisdhers at
| large within prescribed limits. All Pdpists
exercising ecclesiastical jurisdictions all
monks, friaTs and regular r .eSts not then
actually il parishes aud TO be registered,
were bani5hed from Ireland under pain OF
transT TOrt3ti n, and, on return3 of being
hanged, drawn and qUartered:
Catholicism as well as Professionalism had
its martyrs. 1t does seem as if when any
one sect got complete dOminancy in any
land the devil of persecution and cruelty
took possess on of that sect Then see the
Catholics after the Hugusnots. See the
Gentiles after the Jews in Touraine; Where
a great PIT was dug and fire lighted at the
bottom of the pit, and one hundred and
sixty Jewish victims were consumed. See
the Presby terian parli an 9nt Of Englan1,
more tyrapnical in their treatment of op-
po1eHts than had been the criminal
courts; persecution against the Bap-
fists by Pedo-Baptists; persecution
of the Established Church against
the Methodist Church; persecution
against the Quazers; persecution against
the Presbyterians. Under Emperor Dioa
cl?tlan IA, 900 Christians were massacre /,
and 100000 more of them died from bani5hs
ment and exposure. Witness the suferingS
Of the Waldenses, of the Albigenses, of
the HISTORIANS; witness St Bartholomew's
massacre; witness the Duke of Alva
driving out of life 18,OJO Christians; wit
ness Herod, and Nero, and Decius, and
Hildebrand, and Torquemada, and Earl of
Montfort, and Lord Claverhouse, who,
when told that he must give account
for his cruelties, said: Il have no need to
account to man, and as for God, 1 will take
Him in my own hands"
A red line runs through the church his
tory of nineteen hundred years-a liDe Of
blood Not by the hundreds of thousands,
but by the millions must we count those
slain for Christs sake. No wonder John
Milton put the groans Of the martyrs to an
immortal tune, writing:
"Avenge, o Lord, Thy slaughtered saints,
whose bones
Lie scattered on the Alpine mountains cold"
The smoke of martyrs homes and mar
tyrs' bodies, if rolling up all at once,
would have eclipsed the MONDAY sun and
turned the brightest day the world ever
saw into a midnight " Who is this
that cOmeth up out Of the wilderness like
pillars of smoke"'
Has persecution ccasedq Ask that man,
who is trying to be a Christian, in a store
or factory, where from morning to night
he is the butt of all the mean witticisms Of
unbelieving employees. Ask that wife,
whose husband makes her fondness for the
house Of God and even her kneeling prayer
by the bedside a derlsiOn, and is no more
fiji for her holy companionship than filthy
crow would be a fit companion for a robin
or golden oriole. Compromise with the
world and surrender TO its conventional
ties and it may let you alone, but all who
viii live Cody in Jesus Christ must suffer
persecution. Be a theater-g ing, card
playing, wine-drinking, rouud-dancing
Christian, and you may escape criticism
and social pressure; but be an up-and-
down and out-and-oUt follower Of Christ,
and wording VIII wink to wording as he
speaks your name, ana you will be put in
many a doggerel and snubbed by those not
worthy 10 black your oldest shoes.
When the bridge at Ashtabula broke and
let down most Of the carload Of passen gers
to instant death Mr. p p Bliss was
seated on one side Of the aisle Of the car
writing down a Chr stian song which he
was composing, and the other side a
group Of men were playing cards. Whose
landing place in eternity would You prefer
that Of P. P. Bliss, the Gospel singer, or
Of the card-playcrs9
a great complaint comes from the the
aters about the ladies' high hats, because